The Problem

When the owner contacted me in 2011, he had a straightforward problem:

Big national dumpster rental companies were dominating every search result that mattered.

Search for “Phoenix dumpster rental” (or any location + “dumpster rental”) and you’d see the same players: Waste Management, Republic Services, Budget Dumpster.

His single-location shop? Nowhere to be found.

His phones would ring, but he KNEW there was so much more to this market – that all he had was a tiny little piece. His dumpsters spent far too much time in the lot. And he was watching potential customers hand their money to companies that couldn’t match his service quality or local responsiveness.

The challenge: Break through entrenched competition with national SEO budgets and get his phones ringing.

The Strategy

I started with his existing site — aged, which was good for SEO, but thin on content and invisible in search.

Phase 1: Location Expansion

We identified 20 locations he could service and actually wanted to rank for. Not just throwing darts at a map — these were strategic targets where demand existed and he could deliver.

Created dedicated pages for each location. Not duplicate content garbage. Real pages optimized for local search with specific targeting.

Phase 2: Authority Building

Got him backlinks. A lot of them. (This was 2011 — different era, different tactics.)

The focus was volume and relevance. Local directories, industry sites, regional business listings.

Phase 3: Rinse and Repeat

Once the first 20 locations hit, we expanded to 15 more using the same playbook.

The Results

30-60 days after launch:

All 20 target location keywords hit top 3 in Google.

Not page one. Top three positions.

His phones started ringing. Constantly.

What happened next:

• Hired more staff to handle call volume
• Secured additional parking areas for inventory
• Purchased more dumpsters to meet demand
• Expanded to 15 additional locations
• Those rankings? Top 3 again.

The bottleneck wasn’t marketing anymore. It was logistics.

The only thing limiting growth was his ability to buy more dumpsters and find places to park them between rentals. (Though honestly, this was a nice problem to have since most dumpsters were out on jobs, not sitting on the tarmac.)

By Month 5:

Revenue had increased approximately 10x.

He was talking to lawyers about franchising the business.

He’d built SOPs (standard operating procedures) for every aspect of operations — systematized everything. The business was ready to scale.

The Plot Twist

Then Google changed their algorithm.

A lot of the backlinks I’d acquired? Suddenly considered “black hat.”

His site got penalized. Rankings tanked.

We recovered:

• Cleared the penalty
• Started building higher-quality links (which cost more)
• Prepared to rebuild rankings

But the owner hit pause.

Franchising was going to be a long process. He wanted to focus on that before investing more in marketing.

By that point, I’d moved on to other clients.

But the business he’d built during those 5 months? Still running strong. The demand we’d proven existed? Still there. The systems he’d created? Still working.

10x growth in 5 months. From invisible to market leader.

What Made This Work

1. Strategic Location Targeting

We didn’t try to rank for everything. We picked 20 locations he could actually service well, dominated those, then expanded.

Focused execution beats scattered effort every time.

2. Speed to Results

30-60 days to top 3 rankings isn’t normal. But it happened because:

• Aged domain (authority existed)
• Strategic targeting (less competitive than national keywords)
• Aggressive link building (volume + relevance)
• Quality service (once customers found him, they stayed)

3. Systems Thinking

The owner didn’t just chase growth. He built systems.

SOPs for every process. Hiring plans. Logistics strategies.

When the phones started ringing, he was READY.

That’s why he could scale so fast.

4. Real Business Constraints

The limiting factor wasn’t marketing. It was dumpster inventory.

That’s the sign of a successful campaign — when logistics become the bottleneck, not lead generation.

The Lessons

1. SEO can move FAST when done right

Everyone says “SEO takes 6-12 months.” Sometimes. But strategic, aggressive execution can deliver results in 30-60 days.

2. Algorithm changes are real

What worked in 2011 (volume backlinks) became a penalty risk by 2012. Tactics change. Fundamentals don’t.

3. Systems enable scale

The owner’s obsession with SOPs meant he could handle 10x growth without falling apart. Marketing brings the demand. Systems handle the delivery.

4. Timing matters

He paused right when franchising became the priority. That’s not failure — that’s strategic decision-making. Different goals, different tactics.

The Footnote

This was 2011-2012. Different SEO landscape. Different tactics.

The backlinks that worked then would get you penalized now.

But the STRATEGY still works:

• Pick specific, winnable targets
• Dominate those
• Build systems to handle demand
• Scale strategically

The tactics change. The principles don’t.

And when you execute with precision and speed, you can 10x a business in months, not years.